RENSSELAER, N.Y. — The NYISO Business Issues Committee voted Wednesday in favor of changing how the ISO reports on historic congestion, agreeing with management that the current process is resource-intensive and the resulting data underutilitized.

The BIC’s vote recommends that the Management Committee endorse the new process, which will require Tariff changes, to the Board of Directors.

Some of the congestion metrics required by the Tariff can be extracted from production security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) runs but other data require rerunning SCUC to calculate the difference between the actual constrained grid and an unconstrained system.

“In our review of the site traffic, we realized there was not much use of the historic congestion data, so it’s of limited value in finding where congestion is on the system,” said Timothy Duffy, manager of economic planning. “We don’t believe there are any stakeholders using that data meaningfully.”

The proposed changes would eliminate the requirement to compare historic data to an unconstrained system.

The ISO will continue providing the historic metrics generated by SCUC: the value of demand congestion by constrained element or contingency; load and generator payments; and total load and generation scheduled.

It will add a new set of metrics: actual congestion rents by constraint, based on modeled flows and shadow prices.

Consolidated Edison’s Jane Quin representative abstained, saying it was premature to change the current reporting before the ISO has moved ahead with an economic transmission project to address congestion. Quin also said NYISO had not shown that the current Tariff requirement was unduly burdensome.

“Data we are pulling is not used in any settlement proceeding at all … and the data we are presently required to produce [that we would no longer produce] would not be of any value in planning an economic transmission project,” Duffy responded.

By the fourth quarter, the ISO will provide a report of historic congestion information relating to 2018 data utilizing the new metrics, broken into quarterly figures to mesh with quarterly reports beginning with 2019 data.

The data will continue to include actual demand ($) congestion by constrained element/contingency; load and generator payments ($); and total load and generation scheduled (MWh).

The reporting of historic congestion will incorporate actual congestion rents by constraint based on modeled flows and shadow prices.

Supplemental Resource Evaluation Improvements

NYISO has made progress in clarifying the minimum deliverability requirements for capacity from PJM, Rana Mukerji, ISO senior vice president for market structures, told the BIC.

ISO officials made presentations on the current Supplemental Resource Evaluation process and potential changes at joint meetings of the Installed Capacity Working Group and Market Issues Working Group in April and May. The ISO will present the market design proposal for process improvements at a joint ICAPWG/MIWG meeting July 26.

In his Broader Regional Markets Report, Mukerji also discussed NYISO’s efforts since 2016 to find an alternative approach for calculating locality exchange factors, which measure the capability of import-constrained regions relative to neighboring control areas.

NYISO has concluded the stability and transparency of the current approach is preferable to a probabilistic approach. The ISO has told stakeholders that further work on this effort is unlikely to yield an implementable methodology and continued investigation of a probabilistic approach is not warranted.

Mukerji also discussed Public Service Electric and Gas’ May 3 complaint against Consolidated Edison concerning two transmission lines, B3402 Hudson-to-Farragut (B line) and C3403 Marion-to-Farragut (C line). PSE&G alleged that underwater portions of the lines may have been permanently damaged and should be removed; however, the complaint acknowledged that a prior leak in the B line has been repaired.

NYISO filed a protest with FERC on June 6 indicating that removal of the lines would undermine resilience in both New Jersey and New York. The lines support grid resilience by providing opportunities for operational flexibility and emergency service in both the New York Control Area and PJM. The ISO’s protest noted that PSE&G’s complaint did not demonstrate that another leak from either of the lines was imminent and requested that the complaint be denied.

Public Website Redesign Update

Dave O’Brien, NYISO project manager, provided an update on the project to redesign the ISO’s public website.

The main objectives of the redesign are to improve the site navigation and search engine capability and implement a document library. The project will recategorize the most frequently accessed documents to make them easier to find.

O’Brien indicated that existing webpage and document links on www.nyiso.com would be changing because of the project, but he emphasized there would be no changes to existing mis.nyiso.com (OASIS) links. The project is targeting a launch by year-end.

BIC Elects Aaron Breidenbaugh Vice Chair

The BIC elected Aaron Breidenbaugh of energy management consulting firm Luthin Associates as its vice chair.

In addition to helping clients in procuring electricity and natural gas, Luthin also represents an unincorporated group of nonprofit institutional customers known as Consumer Power Advocates before the ISO, Public Service Commission and FERC.

“I’m happy to be able now to pay back into the NYISO governance structure,” Breidenbaugh said.

Energy Prices up 32% YoY

NYISO prices averaged $32.53/MWh in June, up from $28.78 in May and higher than $31.76 in the same month a year ago, Mukerji said.

Year-to-date monthly energy prices averaged $47.70/MWh through June, a 32% increase from $36.01 a year earlier. June’s average sendout was 445 GWh/day, higher than 397 GWh/day in May but down from 454 GWh/day a year earlier.

Transco Z6 hub natural gas prices averaged $2.45/MMBtu, down 4% from May but up 4.5% year-over-year.

Distillate prices dropped slightly compared to the previous month but were up 56.3% year-over-year. Jet Kerosene Gulf Coast and Ultra Low Sulfur No. 2 Diesel NY Harbor averaged $15.47/MMBtu and $15.32/MMBtu, respectively.

Total uplift costs and uplift per megawatt-hour rose from May, with the ISO’s local reliability share at 18 cents/MWh in June, lower than 22 cents the previous month, while the statewide share climbed from -17 cents/MWh to 12 cents.

Thunderstorm Alerts in New York City, which cause more conservative operations with reduced transmission transfer limits, cost 39 cents/MWh, up nearly fivefold from 8 cents in May.

— Michael Kuser